


Each Petal That Falls Makes My Heart Ache

by moritzofsuburbia



Category: VIXX
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Bisexual Character, Blood, Blossom Tears AU, M/M, Violence, based off the music video, basically leo doesn't remember his crimes from the past, don't trust me i'm not a doctor, except in rare moments that lead to breakdowns, graphic depiction of murder, implied leo x everyone else, implied mental health issues, implied past murders, implied wontaek - Freeform, medically accurate homosexual murder, or a murderer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 18:34:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7812658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moritzofsuburbia/pseuds/moritzofsuburbia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taekwoon is too afraid of losing Hakyeon, so he does what he has to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Each Petal That Falls Makes My Heart Ache

**Author's Note:**

> I'd been wanting to write this idea for so long, and once I actually got started, I wrote the whole thing in under a week which is way faster than I expected?? Well I did my best. The title is a line from the english translation of Blossom Tears.

Taekwoon’s repressed memories needed somewhere to go, so they went towards his dreams. There was no controlling his subconscious, not once he was asleep and vulnerable, and his head had plenty of nightmare material stored up.

But the fact that this was a normal occurrence didn’t mean Taekwoon still wasn’t frightened to wakefulness, forced back into consciousness with a jolt. The nightmare had left his heart pounding, and a thin layer of sweat had broken out on his skin. Suddenly the bedsheets seemed much too hot, practically suffocating him. However, as usual, he found himself craving the heat of the body next to him even more.

“Woonie?” The voice from beside him asked sleepily. He’d woken Hakyeon up, again, and he would be sorry if not for the fact that it was so relieving to hear that voice.

The relief was always short lived.

“Just a nightmare. Go back to sleep.” Taekwoon weakly kicked the covers off of one of his legs, relieving a bit of the heat without further disturbing Hakyeon.

“Oh, Taekwoon, another one?” Even though he’d been asleep only seconds ago, the concern was already making it’s way into Hakyeon’s voice. He curled closer to Taekwoon, an arm circling his waist, a hand shifting to run fingers through his messy hair. “It’s alright, I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Hakyeon always did exactly what he thought Taekwoon needed. Taekwoon had once said his voice was comforting, so Hakyeon spoke to him. Taekwoon had once said he needed to be reminded that he was there, so Hakyeon reassured him as many times as he needed to. But in the dead of the night, when the tailor’s subconscious forcibly dug up those thoughts that he tried so hard to forget, every word Hakyeon said made Taekwoon want to sob. Every time he moved further into Taekwoon’s space, Taekwoon wanted simultaneously to pull him impossibly closer and push him far away.

_Please just don’t leave me again._

Taekwoon laid there, calm, impassive, and unresponsive to Hakyeon’s touches. “I’m going to go get some work done.”

“Now?” Hakyeon’s head turned on the pillow to glance at the digital clock on the bedside table. “It’s the middle of the night, sweetheart.”

“It’ll help put my mind at ease.” That had always been true in the past, so Taekwoon knew Hakyeon couldn’t argue with it, despite how much he would want to. When Taekwoon was stressed, he worked. When he was upset, he sketched out designs. When he was troubled, he hemmed and altered and re-stitched until he felt like his hands would fall off. It was one of the most calming feelings in the world, closely tied with anything that involved his Hakyeon.

He never admitted it, but he wasn’t sure which was more calming.

He pressed a kiss to Hakyeon’s temple before leaving his arms, and then the bed. He heard Hakyeon let out a sigh with the sudden emptiness. “I’ll just have the lamp on, at my desk. I won’t disturb you. Go back to sleep, I promise I’ll come back to bed.”

And Hakyeon didn’t argue, because Taekwoon kept his promises.

At some point, Taekwoon was awakened by gentle hands on his shoulders. He stretched his back, aching from having fallen asleep at his desk. “Taekwoon-ah, it’s 9 am, you fell asleep working again.”

No reply came from Taekwoon, just a silent yawn. He could’ve fallen back asleep right there, but he brought himself to his feet, knowing he’d be laying down again within a minute anyway. Wrapping an arm around Hakyeon’s waist, causing the other man to let out a giggle, he pulled him along with him to the bed, flopping down right on top of the messy covers.

“I promised I’d come back to bed, right?”

Hakyeon laughed again. “I wasn’t quite ready to get up, anyway.” Taekwoon loved the way that his smile spread over his whole face, stretching his beautiful lips wide and making the corners of his eyes crinkle while his eyes themselves lit up. Hakyeon curled his body into Taekwoon’s, fitting them together like puzzle pieces, the way they always fit together.

And even though Taekwoon could press his lips to the crown of Hakyeon’s head, kiss him sleepily and breathe in the way he smelled just like home, he couldn’t bring himself to smile the way Hakyeon always did.

More and more, those nightmares were invading his head in his waking hours.

“I love you,” Hakyeon murmured, sounding very much like he was already on the verge of sleep again, and Taekwoon’s eyes would have filled with tears if he hadn’t already grown used to this empty and fearful feeling deep inside of himself.

At least they were together, back in their shared bed just like Taekwoon had promised, prepared to sleep in for another hour or so. And that was the thing, Taekwoon always kept his promises, because what was the point of a promise that you didn’t intend to keep? All that could come of such a thing was pain, and the world had quite enough of that already. Taekwoon wouldn’t let himself be the cause of any pain, least of all to his beloved Hakyeon.

That was why he always made a promise with the full intent of keeping it. He could only hope, with a deeply-rooted feeling of paranoia, that Hakyeon would always do the same.

 

 

 

This was wrong. It was all wrong.

Taekwoon huffed, ripping another page from his sketchbook and pushing it aside. He wouldn’t throw it away, not yet, it held some ideas that might still be salvageable. But overall, the design was terrible. Overwhelmingly plain. Not good enough for his Hakyeon by any means.

He began yet another sketch, hoping that the fresh page would provide a clean canvas for both his pencil and his mind. He was overthinking this, that was all. Spend too long thinking on anything and it’ll never come out right. What he needed was a break, to just step away for a bit and come back to this with a clear head, but he was never good at allowing himself to take breaks.

He’d get there. Just a few adjustments and he’d be fine.

_I could make it more similar to the last one… To Jaehwan’s… That one turned out so well, it fit him so nicely…_

The pencil trembled ever so slightly in his hand.

_Jaehwan’s suit had been one of my favorites._

This wasn’t right. It felt like he was having another one of his nightmares, but he knew for sure he was awake this time. Wasn’t he?

He didn’t think about this while he was awake. He wasn’t capable of it.

_Shut up, block it out, don’t think about it._

_I never hurt anyone._

_Yes you did._

_Please stop._

Taekwoon had been unmoving, staring at his sketch for so long, that when it was suddenly snatched out of his hand all he could do was blink.

“So, this is the design you’ve been working on, day and night?” For a startling moment, Taekwoon heard the words being spoken in someone else’s voice, someone ( _who was dead_ ) who was not here, before he came back to his senses and realized it was Hakyeon. Hakyeon who was his fiance, Hakyeon who the design was for, Hakyeon who loved him.

Not anyone else. There had never been anyone else.

Taekwoon’s head was still buzzing, but he was lucid enough to know that Hakyeon was doing something he wasn’t supposed to. “Hey, give that back, it’s not done yet.”

“Oh, I just wanted a peek,” he said, as if that excused it, dancing away even as Taekwoon was trying to grab the piece of paper back. And he smiled that smile that Taekwoon loved, and that was enough to bring a smile to his own face as well, but it was short lived. He rose to his feet, reaching for the sketch, only for Hakyeon to dare to step further away. “Oh, Taekwoon, it looks lovely--”

_He’s lying to you it’s unfinished imperfect not good enough he wasn’t supposed to see yet_

And before he knew what had happened, the paper was back in Taekwoon’s hand and Hakyeon was on the floor.

Hakyeon didn’t say anything, just stared up at Taekwoon in shock. Taekwoon hadn’t pushed him, or he hadn’t meant to, he just wanted his design back. Besides, he didn’t seem to be hurt from the fall. Regardless, a pang of guilt hit Taekwoon in the stomach, one that had him looking away in embarrassment.

Well, Hakyeon shouldn’t have been messing around in the first place, anyway.

Calmly, Taekwoon sat back down and returned to his project, ignoring the feeling of guilt that was accompanied by an urge to help Hakyeon up and apologize with a long hug.

 

 

Coming home from work always felt nice, no matter how long Hakyeon had been gone. He was happy with his little job at the flower shop down the street, but he was happier with Taekwoon and their cozy apartment above the tailor’s shop. He walked through the door, humming a song under his breath that had been stuck in his head all day, but his voice cut off when his eyes fell on the new mannequin by Taekwoon’s workspace.

The mannequin was wearing what Hakyeon would be wearing when he walked down the aisle -- or the start of it, at least. It was quite a good start, from what he could tell. The fabric was a dark blue, it was only because of the well-lit room that Hakyeon could tell it wasn’t actually black. Taekwoon’s tape measure hung around the neck of the mannequin, he’d most likely stopped right in the middle of working on it (something that was also clear by the unfinished stitching on the sleeves), and Hakyeon wondered for the first time since returning home where Taekwoon had gone.

Hopefully not far, because Hakyeon needed to see him as soon as possible, in order to kiss him and thank him for the beautiful suit. They could forget about what had happened yesterday. They could.

The second thing he noticed was a note, left on Taekwoon’s desk -- he’d probably meant for it to stick out, due to it being written in red ink, unlike the penciled drawings scattered across the wooden surface.

 

_Darling,_

_I’m so sorry for what happened yesterday. It wasn’t my intention to upset you or hurt you. I love you so much, you know that. I know this can’t fully make up for yesterday, but I hoped it would cheer you up to see the beginning of what you’ll be wearing for our wedding. You’re going to look so beautiful in it._

_Love, T_

 

Hakyeon could have passed for a smitten schoolgirl, the way he was smiling.

Hakyeon had never gotten a very close look at Taekwoon’s workspace. His fiance was proud of what he did, loved showing off his finished work, but his works-in-progress were another story. He was always shy about the incomplete things, insecure about anything he hadn’t already perfected. And as Hakyeon glanced at his desk covered in paper, he could see the extent of the half-things. What surprised him was the realization that everything there was some variation of the unfinished tuxedo that the new mannequin was wearing. All this for a single project-- and right there, in the middle of it all, was the sketchbook that laid open to show the product of all those scrapped designs. A finished illustration of the tuxedo, one that stood out among the others because it was the only one in finished color.

For Hakyeon, this discovery only bred more curiosity. This was one of those occasions where he wished he could just get into Taekwoon’s head, see what made the gears turn in his mind, see how he does what he does, and how he does it so beautifully. There were dozens of other sketchbooks piled back here, and Hakyeon had seen every design that Taekwoon had ever finished, but he was suddenly longing for the in-betweens.

But he couldn’t invade his lover’s privacy like that. It would have been disrespectful to do so, even if he _was_ only doing it out of love.

Surely there was something else for him to take a look at, though? Like one of those boxes in the corner?

He intended to just take a quick look, but his attention was drawn away by something he caught in his peripheral vision. He was behind Taekwoon’s desk at that point, something that was frowned upon unless Taekwoon was already seated there, but curiosity had a tight hold on him. And if he hadn’t been standing in that exact spot, he wouldn’t have noticed the pills on the floor.

Or at least, they looked like pills. A handful of the things had been spilled onto the floor, out of a bottle that sat on the very bottom of a set of shelves. Too close to the floor for any person to notice unless they were behind this desk.

Hakyeon knelt down, surprised by the smell that hit his nose when he did. Was that coming from the bottle? Tenderly he picked it up, lifting it to his nose and confirming his suspicions: the smell was most definitely these pills, or capsules, or whatever they were. It was an acrid smell, stinging his senses a little bit. He knew of Taekwoon’s anxiety, perhaps he took medication for it? But then why the smell? Pills didn’t smell like that, at least not to his knowledge.

Before he could inspect the label, a noise startled him and grabbed his attention, only to cause him to laugh at himself when he realized it was nothing. The apartment was old, it made noises sometimes, that was all. He was probably getting anxious himself, imagining things. He placed the bottle where it had been on the shelf, laying on it’s side. He knew he should have given up on this snooping around, it was stupid, but he remembered those few white boxes stacked in the corner and decided to push his luck just a little bit.

The box on top would have been easy just to peek inside. And he was about to do just that, but all he caught was a flash of deep maroon fabric before another hand was suddenly pressing the lid down.

When he looked up into Taekwoon’s eyes, he saw that his gaze wasn’t angry or upset. In fact, he looked almost afraid.

“Oh, you scared me. Taekwoon, you didn’t tell me you were starting on the sewing today.” Hakyeon’s attention went from the box back to the mannequin, and Taekwoon watched him walk over to it without a word. “It’s beautiful,” he said, letting his fingers brush over the lapel of the jacket. “See? There was no reason to stress. I told you it would turn out wonderful, like all your designs do.”

Taekwoon was still standing in the corner with his hand on the box. The fearful look in his eyes had faded, but he hadn’t moved an inch, and so Hakyeon made his way back over to him in the hopes of snapping him out of… whatever this was.

“It’s beautiful, Taekwoon,” he repeated, arms going around Taekwoon’s body to hug him close. “I can’t wait to wear it for you.”

It was only with slow, cautious movements that Taekwoon finally lifted his hand from the lid of the box to circle his arms around Hakyeon as well.

 

 

“What are your favorite kind of flowers this week?” Hakyeon asked from their kitchen space, washing the dishes as Taekwoon sewed. That was one of the nice things about their apartment -- everything was so open. They could talk to each other and see each other while doing most things. Taekwoon seemed to like that.

“Irises,” he answered immediately. “You brought home a beautiful mixed bouquet the other day, one with some beautiful purple irises.”

“Are those the kinds of flowers we should have at our wedding?”

These days, questions about the wedding were Hakyeon’s favorite thing to ask. They were also Taekwoon’s favorite to answer.

“No, we change our minds too much. You know I’ll have a new favorite the next time you bring some home. But we’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“That’s fair. We’ve got time.”

Taekwoon’s stomach filled with worry at those words, worry too subtle for Hakyeon to detect yet. To brush it off, he stood and made his way over to the other, as though he could walk away from his concerns and leave them resting beside his sewing machine.

“I’ve been working hard lately. I might have you try on what I have of the outfit so far, just so I can make sure it fits you right.” Of course it would, he knew his measurements by heart at this point. It was about the anticipation, the joy of it, that they got out of the activities leading up to the wedding.

“I’d love to do that.” There was an element of shyness in his voice, one that Taekwoon recognized.

“You’re going to look beautiful. You always do.”

The statement was followed by a shrug. “I’ll be nothing next to you, baby. But thank you.” Hakyeon laughed lightheartedly, brushing it off, but Taekwoon knew by now not to ignore these offhand comments.

“That’s not true at all. You’re beautiful in everything you wear.”

“Now that is definitely false.”

“It’s true, beautiful.”

“Don’t make me throw this wet towel at you,” Hakyeon threatened, but Taekwoon caught the way he tried to pretend like the compliment didn’t make him smile.

“Who will be at the wedding?” he asked quietly, leaning against the cabinets. He already knew the answers. He asked anyway.

“Everyone,” Hakyeon promised. “My parents. My brother. Some friends I can’t wait for you to meet. Even my grandparents are coming around with the whole thing. My parents have been talking to them, you know. It’ll be fine.” Hakyeon smiled -- he was unconcerned. “They’re just old. You know how it is. It’s the idea of bisexuality that they’re still coming to terms with, not our relationship.” Finishing the dishes, he dried his hands hastily on the towel and turned to face Taekwoon, who looked like he was worried enough for the both of them combined.

“Hey,” Hakyeon started, his voice going gentle. “I know what you’re thinking, baby, but it’s going to be alright. My family supports us, okay? You don’t have to worry about your family. My family is yours too now, you know that?”

Taekwoon nodded instead of responding, but his gaze softened a bit. Closing the space between them, he slid his arms around his lover’s waist, pulling him close. It drew a content sigh from Hakyeon.

“I missed the feeling of you hugging me like that,” he confessed, head leaning against Taekwoon’s shoulder. In response, Taekwoon only hugged him tighter.

It was no secret that Taekwoon wasn’t quite as affectionate these days as he used to be.

Hesitantly, Hakyeon pressed a kiss to Taekwoon’s shoulder, against the fabric of his shirt. He then looked up into Taekwoon’s eyes, the kiss having been a silent question, and in answer Taekwoon leaned in to meet his lips.

Funny how there was once a time when Hakyeon didn’t need permission, when Taekwoon couldn’t get enough of the taste of his lips.

 _He’s going through a lot right now, mentally,_ Hakyeon would think, to try and justify Taekwoon’s behavior. _He loves me, I know he does. It’s anxiety. Those things he mentions in as few words as possible but never explains. He doesn’t have to explain. It’s okay._

Hakyeon dared to kiss Taekwoon a second time, the best kind of butterflies rising in his stomach even at the simple feeling of Taekwoon’s hand coming to rest on the back of his head.

“You don’t touch me like you used to,” Hakyeon whispered against his lips. “You touch me like I’m made of glass.”

“How do you want me to touch you?”

Taekwoon asked as though he’d never touched Hakyeon before. As though he hadn’t already touched every part of him.

“Touch me like you’re not afraid to ruin me. I trust you to put me back together.”

 

 

“Keep doing that, that feels nice.”

“What?”

“Running your fingers through my hair. You haven’t done that in awhile." 

“We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”

“Of course we are, Taek. We’re getting married, and we’re going to wake up next to each other and kiss each other good morning every day. We're going to adopt those two wonderful children we're always talking about. And you’re going to keep sewing your beautiful creations, and I’m going to keep bringing you beautiful flowers.”

“...”

“...”

“Hakyeon?”

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Would you ever leave me?”

“Of course not, why would you even consider something like that?”

“...”

“...”

“Hakyeon?”

“Yes, love?”

“Don’t let go of me.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

 

One thing Taekwoon had learned was that nothing hurt more in this world than broken promises and betrayed trust.

Broken promises occurred when “I love you” became a routine. Broken promises occurred when words emptied out their meanings. And broken promises could be blamed on those who made and then broke them in the first place, because _really_ , that was their own fault.

When it came to betrayed trust, however, Taekwoon thought the blame should be placed on the idiot who decided to put their trust in someone so carelessly. (He should know, having been that careless idiot too many times before.)

For Taekwoon, the progression of his relationship with Hakyeon hadn’t been like the norm. It didn’t gradually get easier, starting with awkward introductions and shy glances and wondering who would be the first to speak, the first to reach for the other’s hand, the first to lean in for a kiss. It didn’t finish with those shows of affection becoming second nature.

In the beginning, Hakyeon had been optimistic and reckless in the best way. Taekwoon had been shy but all too willing to go along with Hakyeon’s reckless ideas, including falling in love, which had been by far his most reckless idea yet. But it worked.

It was still working now, but it worked with gears turned rusty with use. The cogs slowly began to jam with too many of Taekwoon’s worries, because the closer he got to Hakyeon, the more he knew it was going to hurt if he lost him.

He didn’t know when his mind had switched out that ‘if’ with a ‘when’ and made their machine start malfunctioning.

If he’d taken a step back to look at the problem, maybe he would have caught onto the fact that it was his head malfunctioning, rather than anything between himself and Hakyeon. But he didn’t. And so he began to watch his own actions a little more carefully. He was never safe, not even when all they were doing was laying in bed.

He caught himself reaching for Hakyeon’s hand. He caught himself about to run his fingers through his hair. Sometimes he’d indulge himself, and these simple shows of affection brought such a nice smile to Hakyeon’s face, and such content sounds from his throat. But more and more often, Taekwoon started letting the possibilities get the best of him.

He would still allow Hakyeon to initiate whatever physical contact he wished. But if Taekwoon himself initiated it, that might have meant he was pushing. Or being clingy. Or letting himself believe for a second that he and Hakyeon were going to be happy and grow old together. And it would do no good for him to get his hopes up when they’d already been let down so many times before.

They had, hadn’t they? How? He couldn’t remember.

And it was at these times -- the times when he started questioning the extent of things that his brain was allowing him to remember -- that he had to back off entirely, pull his body away from Hakyeon, and go distract his mind by stitching up fabric.

(He still couldn’t stitch up the torn seams in his own head.)

 

 

Everything hurt, from his eyes which had gone puffy and red with tears, to his throat which had gone raw from sobbing.

The air had been colder than usual when Taekwoon woke, the absence on the other half of the bed practically a tangible thing, as though he could’ve reached his hand out and touched his loneliness in a cold, solid form.

It had taken a single hour for his eyes to run out of tears, and for his hands to grow tired of destruction. He figured that wouldn’t last long, so until he regained his energy he sat on the edge of the bed, half tempted to curl up on it, make himself small enough to disappear.

Hakyeon had left. Taekwoon had seen it coming yet he’d been too slow to do anything about it, and now it was too late to regret what he hadn’t done. The apartment felt too empty, lacking the way that Hakyeon’s presence could fill an entire room, with his overwhelming joy and love. It was much too cold here without Hakyeon’s warmth.

This scene was starting to seem familiar, and Taekwoon couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. Albeit, he didn’t try very hard. He didn’t want to remember. All he knew was that he’d suffered this pain before and he wasn’t supposed to suffer it ever again, Hakyeon had promised him he wouldn’t…

He was surely a sight, sitting still and unmoving in the very middle of all the chaos of the room. Mannequins lay toppled over, papers and sketchbooks swept off his desk and across the floor, bedsheets laying almost completely off the bed. And it was when Taekwoon started thinking about those bedsheets and how he would never lay beneath them against Hakyeon’s body again, that he heard the door to the apartment open.

“Taekwoon?” his fiance’s voice asked tentatively. “What happened in here?”

He kept his head down, counting the floorboards to ground himself. “You left,” he explained in a barely audible voice, though Hakyeon was used to such things, and heard his words quite clearly.

“Oh, Taekwoon…” He heard Hakyeon enter the apartment fully and close the door behind him, rushing to set something down before hurrying to his side.

_Of course he’d come back to taunt you._

“I only went to the store, I planned to make it back before you were up… Look at me, you’re alright. I’m here, okay?”

_If he realizes how much you were crying he’s going to laugh in your face._

Hakyeon pulled Taekwoon, who was too surprised to resist, to his feet. “Baby, please, I was coming right back, did you seriously think I had left for good?"

Hakyeon simultaneously threw his arms around Taekwoon and buried his head in the juncture between his shoulder and his neck. The affection melted some of the ice in Taekwoon’s thoughts, though he was still too cold to be rid of it all. But Hakyeon did at least ground him in reality, keep his feet on the ground.

“I love you,” Hakyeon insisted. “I love you so, so much.” He held tight to his lover as though he might float away.

_I love you too._

His mind drifted inexplicably, not for the first time, to the capsules sitting on the bottom shelf behind his desk.

 

 

Faking a smile was worth it when you knew that, in the end, it would be for the better. That was what Hakyeon told himself on the bad days.

Besides, it wasn’t faking, exactly. He loved Taekwoon, with every inch of his being.

So he cleaned up the occasional mess when things went awry. So he hugged Taekwoon and told him he loved him even when he didn’t expect to receive the same affection in return. He meant it all the same.

He knew the barest outline of the details. Taekwoon’s strained relationship with an unsupportive family who refused to watch him marry another man. The anxiety that stemmed from a past relationship, of which Hakyeon didn’t know much. The paranoia that Hakyeon tried to subside with constant reminders that he was there, or, if he was leaving, what time he would be back. Even reassurances that he _would_ be back at all. Taekwoon visibly settled when he had those reassurances. Even in the cases of things he didn’t always vocalize, Hakyeon had come to understand his nuances with time.

Taekwoon’s reaction to Hakyeon’s unexpected absence couldn’t have been called… _unusual_ , per se. Just unexpected. Drastic. Much more drastic than what Hakyeon had witnessed from him before (excluding a couple breakdowns that he didn’t like to think about). He did calm down finally after Hakyeon forced him to make eye contact and insisted that he wasn’t going anywhere. Hakyeon did his part to take care of him, fixing them both tea to calm the atmosphere of the apartment. What Hakyeon didn’t do was tell his fiance how he’d left him on the receiving end of this kind of behavior many more times than just the once that Hakyeon had done it. In fact, it had reached a point now where Hakyeon came to expect an empty bed when he awoke. Taekwoon was usually the first to rise and immediately went to his work.

But Hakyeon didn’t want to complain. This wasn’t about him. This was about Taekwoon and his clearly unhealthy mental state that they were working together to take care of. So Hakyeon could handle being left in the dust sometimes if it meant he could keep trying to lift Taekwoon up.

He wanted to understand much more than he did, but he understood enough for now. The wedding would change things. Hakyeon himself would change things. Over time, Taekwoon would relax, he’d trust him again, and no matter how long that took to happen, Hakyeon would be ready to listen to him when it did.

 

 

“I didn’t mean to! It wasn’t my fault! I never wanted to hurt anyone!”

The first time this specific kind of breakdown had happened, Hakyeon had absolutely no idea what to do. This was the third time over the course of their relationship, and he still had no idea, but that didn’t stop him from trying to fix it anyway.

“Oh my god, what did I do, what the _fuck_ did I _do_?”

From the moment this began, they’d ended up on the floor. Hakyeon had Taekwoon’s body locked in his arms, pressing Taekwoon’s head to his chest as he sobbed and yelled. Because the last time this had happened, as soon as Hakyeon let Taekwoon go, that was when he’d started throwing things.

Taekwoon was still yelling, but Hakyeon spoke over him, hoping and praying that he’d listen to his voice and calm down somehow. “Darling, you’re okay, this is just a bad day, but you’re okay, just breathe, I’m here--”

“I didn’t mean to! And now I’ll never see them again, how could I _do_ that to them? God, what the fuck is _wrong_ with me? I thought I was saving them but now I’ll never see them again! What’s wrong with my head?”

“Breathe, beautiful, please stop yelling and breathe--” Hakyeon had known he wouldn’t be able to hold Taekwoon back for the entire fit, and that was the moment he lost him. He was thrown off when Taekwoon finally broke out of his grip, scrambling to his feet and reaching the closest object (which happened to be a chair) and throwing it across the floor. It didn’t break, but it made Hakyeon flinch and cover his head, as though the chair had been thrown in his direction rather than away.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Taekwoon repeated over and over, starting to pace around the room, and Hakyeon knew it wouldn’t be long before he decided to throw something else, maybe something more breakable this time. It surprised him when, instead, the tailor went to his desk and knocked various things to the floor, drawing utensils and measuring tape and scissors. Hakyeon got to his feet to pick the scissors up before they hurt anyone, and when he did, Taekwoon began tearing up the loose papers left on his desk, ripping one in half a couple times before reaching for the next.

“Taekwoon, stop--” Hakyeon slid the scissors across the floor, he’d deal with them later, he just needed to avoid either of them getting hurt for right now. “Those are your designs, you’ve worked so hard on those, calm down…” 

He grabbed his lover’s arms, trying to pull him away gently, or as gently as possible when Taekwoon was fighting it as much as he could. Finally Hakyeon had no choice but to take his upper arms from the back, yank him away from the table and wrap an arm around his chest, locking their bodies together once more. He was prepared for Taekwoon to put up a fight again, but to his surprise, he turned and sobbed against his chest.

“I’m sorry Hakyeon,” he heard him speak against his shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Shh,” Hakyeon quieted him, pressing kisses to his hair and not daring to let go. “I forgive you.”

“You don’t know what you’re forgiving me for.”

That was true, but Hakyeon’s words still made Taekwoon wrap his own arms around him, sobbing a little harder.

 

 

With Taekwoon passed out in bed, Hakyeon reconstructed the normalcy of their apartment. He erased the evidence of his lover’s breakdown, righting furniture and placing all of Taekwoon’s materials back on his desk. Even the torn sketches -- he wasn’t sure which ones he would still want to save.

In the calm of night, Hakyeon quietly undid the damage.

These sorts of breakdowns had been few and far between, which certainly didn’t help Hakyeon know when to expect another.

But it was okay, as long as Taekwoon didn’t hurt himself. It was frightening, the thought that in such a state he might do something reckless without Hakyeon to hold him back. From what he could tell, whatever Taekwoon spent those breakdowns yelling about was something he might decide to punish himself for. He rambled on about something he’d done, about hurting other people, and Hakyeon never asked for clarification. Partly because it was Taekwoon’s business, and he wasn’t going to push it unless he knew Taekwoon felt comfortable speaking about it.

Partly because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. 

And partly because Taekwoon wouldn’t remember when it was all over.

Hakyeon knew this from the previous incidents, so he tried to put their apartment back as it was before, the best he could, to avoid confusing or stressing out Taekwoon any more than was unavoidable. The torn pages were a setback, but he could find some excuse for them, he supposed. If Taekwoon accepted the destroyed room the first time he’d had this case of amnesia -- was it serious enough to be called that? -- then he could accept whatever fabricated reason there was for the torn papers this time.

Hakyeon finished the job with time to spare, time that he used to carefully climb back into bed and curl up next to Taekwoon.

As much as he preferred activity to laying in bed, Hakyeon longed for the peace of these moments to go on forever.

But as always, it didn’t last long enough. When Taekwoon stirred from his sleep, the first thing he did was mumble a sleepy ‘good morning’ to Hakyeon, before giving him the kind of smile he only gave when he was still half asleep. He reached for Hakyeon’s hand, cradling it to his chest. He remembered nothing, and Hakyeon couldn’t decide if that fact made him relieved or terribly sad.

 

 

_Five years ago, Taekwoon had still lived in the apartment above his shop, but he had lived there with a man named Wonshik._

_Maybe it was uncommon that they were planning their wedding so soon, but neither of them wanted to wait. Neither of them saw a reason to wait. And Taekwoon was anxious to get started, put pencil to paper and design what Wonshik would wear on that particular day._

_It had been Wonshik who suggested the dark maroon color for his suit, rather than the typical black. Taekwoon agreed without a second thought, always eager to please his lover._

_He never got to see what the finished suit looked like on Wonshik._

_He never got to see Wonshik again, at all._

_Even in the destruction of the apartment that followed Wonshik’s disappearance, the one thing that remained untouched was the mannequin that wore Taekwoon’s current project. Other mannequins, papers, even furniture, were scattered across the room, in the kind of rage that no person had ever seen Taekwoon fall into. Not even himself._

_He was quick to clean the apartment up. Didn’t want Wonshik to return to such chaos._

_But Wonshik didn’t return. He wasn’t going to. The note he'd left behind had made that clear._

_That didn’t stop Taekwoon from painstakingly continuing his work on the suit, staying up entire nights to finish it, even when his hands shook from exhaustion and he was left with pricks in his fingers from an unsteady needle. Maybe he needed to finish this for Wonshik to finally change his mind and return. He still had his ring, didn’t he? Taekwoon certainly did. He pressed it to his lips often, the feeling of the cold hard metal grounding him and reminding him that this, at least, was real._

_But then again, if Wonshik could leave and so easily sever that bond that had seemed so strong, how was Taekwoon supposed to know what was real anymore?_

_Instead of on Wonshik’s body, the finished suit ended up tucked away in a box. At least that way it wouldn’t gather dust._

 

 

He certainly hadn’t let that happen with the next person he fell in love with, a beautiful photographer named Lee Hongbin. Or the next person, Han Sanghyuk. And then Lee Jaehwan. None of them had left him, because he _saved_ them. Saved their relationships before they had a chance to end. Sure, he didn’t get to see them as much these days, especially now that Hakyeon was his lover. But all he had to do was allow himself a glance in the cupboard behind his mannequins, while Hakyeon was at work. He did so only when he allowed himself to remember. He’d open the cupboard, press a gentle kiss to each jar in turn, remind his darlings that he loved them still.

After Wonshik, Taekwoon had learned his lesson. He wouldn’t ever let someone he truly loved slip through his fingers again.

 

 

Hakyeon was thrilled to see the finished suit, and disappointed when Taekwoon wouldn't let him try it on.

"After dinner," he promised him. "Not yet."

 

 

“Taekwoonie, I’m feeling kind of sleepy…”

Taekwoon had offered to fix dinner that night. Halfway through the meal, Hakyeon was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

“I know. It’s okay.”

Movements seemed to blur together as Hakyeon watched his fiance stand up, and circle around the table so he was standing behind the other’s chair.

“I’ll help you up, okay? You won’t be able to walk soon. We should move before that happens, to make this easier.”

Hakyeon didn’t know what Taekwoon was talking about, but every part of his body felt so heavy, all he could do was let himself fall against Taekwoon’s body when he was lifted to a standing position. It almost felt like he was floating. And as Taekwoon led him out of the room, down the hallway, into the bathroom, it _definitely_ felt like he was floating.

He was stripped down to his underwear, laid down in the bathtub, thankfully before his legs had the chance to give out. Hakyeon vaguely expected Taekwoon to run the water, though it was unusual that he’d left him in his underwear. He couldn’t figure out what was happening to himself, was he sick? Was his fiance going to try and jolt him out of whatever this foggy feeling was by running cold water over him? Yes, maybe that would help. But Taekwoon did nothing with Hakyeon yet, he seemed to be busying himself with objects outside of Hakyeon’s line of sight.

“Taekwoon, why… why am I so tired?”

“I wanted to help you relax.”

“You… Taek? What are you doing?”

Hakyeon lolled his head to the side in order to see outside of the tub. On the floor was a bottle, and it looked to be the one full of those funny-smelling pills Hakyeon had found in their apartment once. Beside that rested a spool of black thread and a needle. They could have been materials that Hakyeon had seen Taekwoon use a thousand times before, but the thread didn’t look right, it was on a bigger spool than the ones he’d seen him use. There was also a case that laid open, revealing a few scalpels of different sizes inside, most of them fairly small, like they were meant for careful jobs. Taekwoon was currently unscrewing the lid of a glass jar, one that was halfway filled with a clear liquid. Neatly, he placed the jar and its lid side by side. When he was finished with that, he picked up the only other object on the floor, which was a large kitchen knife.

Okay, so Hakyeon couldn’t think clearly enough to figure out what was going on, but that was okay, this would all be okay…  

Taekwoon was just having one of his bad days.

“You’re going to look so beautiful.”

Taekwoon sat up on his knees in order to reach over the rim of the tub, his eyes examining Hakyeon’s bare chest, and finally Hakyeon was able to manage some movement. It was weak though, he could only scoot a mere inch away from the knife that was dangling from Taekwoon’s hand. “What are you doing?” he repeated his earlier question, voice beginning to rise in alarm.

“Shh, it’s okay. It’ll only hurt a little and then it’ll be done. We’ll be okay, both of us.”

 _Cut as neatly as possible, to make it easier to stitch him back up when it’s done. Cut low so you can reach up under the ribcage, it would be too messy to let any bones break. Let him bleed out before he dies to better preserve him. Otherwise the blood will settle at the lowest point of his body, and he’ll bruise_.

The bits of knowledge simply came to Taekwoon, and he didn’t question it, as though he’d done this in the past. And he had -- he’d been remembering it in brief flashes for awhile now, or in moments of lucidity that sent him spiraling into a breakdown each time.

But this time, he was remembering everything, and he felt much more calm than he had in a long time.

“Wait, please…” Hakyeon seemed to have an idea of what was coming, because he reached up to let his fingers circle Taekwoon’s wrist. His grip was so weak already, just from the effects of the drugged meal. “Talk to me, sweetheart. What’s going on?”

And then the knife pierced skin, slicing Hakyeon open from his stomach to his sternum so quickly that he couldn’t process it even after it happened.

The pained scream that left his mouth was an involuntary reaction, one that he didn’t understand because why would Taekwoon have cut him? The only logical answer was that he hadn’t, but then why was something warm and wet running down his torso? Why did it hurt so _much_?

All Hakyeon could say was his lover’s name, over and over, his voice increasing in pitch with the pain and the realization sinking into him. With each realization only came more confusion.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I know,” Taekwoon whispered, in a voice more relaxed and soothing than Hakyeon had heard in months. He wiped the tears that Hakyeon had been in too much pain to even feel running down his face. He kissed them away when more sprung up. And when Hakyeon’s eyes closed with the threat of passing out, Taekwoon kissed him full on the lips.

“Not yet, darling. Stay with me, stay awake.”

“Taekwoon,” he sobbed. Taekwoon was back at his materials on the floor, removing a couple scalpels from the case. “Please… Go get the phone, call an ambulance, okay? Can you do that for me?” His words left his mouth quickly along with his rapid breaths. “You’re having another episode, okay, you need to listen to me. Please--”

Why did it feel like the temperature suddenly dropped ten degrees? How much blood was he losing? He was too afraid to look down and see.

"T-Taek, you're going to be okay, you just need to calm down. Please stop this."

This was a mistake. His lover didn't know what he was doing, he _couldn't_ mean to do this.

And then Taekwoon was up on his knees again, pulling surgical gloves over his hands.

“Baby…” With a shaky, pallid hand, Hakyeon reached up to rest his fingers on Taekwoon’s face. “Baby, please…”

For a moment, he looked so helpless. The look in his eyes wasn’t even fear exactly -- it was sadness and confusion.

_Why, Taek? Why?_

And then Taekwoon imagined that pretty voice of his saying all those little nicknames to someone else. Baby and darling and sweetheart and lover, copied and pasted onto a copy of Taekwoon, and the brief pang of sympathy was gone.

He’d cut deep. Hakyeon was bleeding out fast.

Taekwoon placed a gloved hand over the cold hand on his face. “I just don’t want you to leave me.”

“I would never.”

Taekwoon gave a slow, sad nod. “I know.”

 

 

Hakyeon did look beautiful in his tuxedo, just like Taekwoon knew he would.

“We don’t have to grow apart, now.” After a deep breath he spoke again, finally able to say the words more comfortably than he had in months. “I love you, Cha Hakyeon. So much.”

The containers in Taekwoon’s cupboard had been shifted over, creating an empty space in the very middle. He pressed a kiss to the jar that held his lover's heart, before tucking it carefully away.


End file.
